Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals
Speakers at 2006 National Conference
Keynote Speaker –Chris Beasley Chief Nursing Officer, DoH
Christine Beasley was appointed as Chief Nursing Officer in October 2004 and is the Director within the Department of Health with the lead for Patient and Public involvement, the Allied Health Professionals and Healthcare Scientists. She is also the lead director for the voluntary and community sector.
Before taking up the CNO post Christine was Director of Partnership Development at the Modernisation Agency. She has held a range of senior posts with a broad experience of policy development, leadership and general management including Head of Development with the Directorate of Health and Social Care and Director of Nursing, Human Resources & Organisational Development with the NHS Executive. She established the London Standing Conference, engaging nurses across the capital in leading service improvement and contributing to improvements in clinical practice across the country.
She was awarded an Honorary Professorship in Nursing by Thames Valley University in 1997 and is a Governor at the University. She is also a Fellow of Queen’s Nursing Institute and a Trustee of Marie Curie Cancer Care.
Christine is married with three sons, two step sons and 1 grandchild.
Helen Glenister Director of Safer Practice & Nursing / Deputy Chief Executive, National Patient Safety Agency
Helen Glenister obtained a BSc (Hons) in Nursing Studies and became a Registered Nurse before taking a number of acute posts at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford. She then worked as an infection control nurse at the Middlesex Hospital and within Waltham Forest Health Authority. A secondment to the AIDS unit of the Department of Health (DH) England followed, before she led a multi-professional DH funded project to validate surveillance methods for detecting hospital infection.
At this time, she obtained a PhD, won the NT/3M National Nursing Award for Research and was an advisor for the WHO (Europe) Quality Programme. She then held various nursing and general management posts within the East Anglian and Anglia and Oxford Regional Health Authorities/Offices before taking up the post of Nursing Director at the Medical Devices Agency, an Executive Agency of the DH. During this time Helen studied for an MBA and was President of the Infection Control Nurses Association. Helen was appointed as Director of Safer Practice & Nursing at the National Patient Safety Agency. The work of the Department focuses on developing solutions to reduce the risk of patient safety incidents. Following a review of national organisations NPSA has taken on responsibilities for cleaning, nutrition and design. Helen is also a Visiting Professor at the European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey and has recently become Deputy Chief Executive of the NPSA.
Liz Jones Head of Patient Environment Chief Nurse’s Office
Liz is Head of Patient Environment at the Department of Health, and is responsible for dealing with issues relating to clinical aspects of estates and facilities management. She has a particular responsibility for policy on hospital food, cleanliness, and privacy and dignity.
Liz’s background is in elderly care nursing, research and education. She has held posts in the NHS and the university sector as clinician, senior lecturer and in staff development. Before joining the Department of Health, Liz was Head of Development at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust. She has a degree in nursing and a PhD in nutrition in older inpatients.
Susan Robinson, Director, Desford Consultancy
Sue is the Director of Desford Consultancy Limited, a consultancy company specialising in the healthcare sector, which provide services across all aspects of facilities management to the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom and Eire. Some recent assignments have included best value reviews, production of service specifications, evaluation of cleaning tenders and the design and delivery of staff training programmes.
She headed the team from Desford Consultancy which undertook the first national hygiene audit of fifty four hospital sites on behalf of the Irish Health Service Executive in 2005; her company has recently commenced a second audit.
Sue has worked for over twenty five years in a variety of senior management roles within the National Health Service, local government and also in project and strategic roles for a multi national ‘blue chip’ company.
She holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and is an active member of the ADM both locally and nationally and serves as a member of the BICSc Council, its Awarding Body Committee and is Chairman of the Midlands Region.
Sue believes that hygiene standards can only be improved by adopting a multi disciplinary approach and is keen to raise the positive profile of the industry in the public domain. The publicity surrounding the first audit in Eire and the great degree of anticipation for the results from the second will hopefully keep the debate for action at the top of everyone’s agenda.
Ian O’Connor (Johnson Diversey) Mission Directed Work Teams
Ian O'Connor is the Supply Director for Johnson Diverseys UK operations. A Chemical Engineer by background, Ian joined the Diversey Corporation 14 years ago, and since that time has held a variety of Supply Chain positions from Project and Engineering management through to Site Director.
In the last four years Ian has overseen the restructuring and cultural transformation of the JD UK Manufacturing Operations, now centred at the Cotes Park site in Derbyshire. In the recent past this site has been recognised for its people effectiveness and customer focus, as it follows the journey towards World Class.
June Chandler, National Officer, UNISON
June Chandler is a National Officer in UNISON’s Health Service Group. She has worked at UNISON since its inception in 1993 and before that at the trade union NALGO (National Association of Local Government Officers), which along with NUPE (National Union of Public Employees) and COHSE (Confederation of Health Service Employees) merged to form UNISON.
As part of her responsibilities within the Health Group, June has lead responsibility for supporting the roll-out of the Knowledge & Skills Framework (KSF), the staff development tool which forms part of Agenda for Change. June represents UNISON on the National KSF Group – the body which developed the framework and is now overseeing its implementation.
Evelyn Ogilvie, Head of Nutrition and Cleaning NPSA
Evelyn started work as Head of Nutrition and Cleaning, with the National Patient Safety Agency, earlier this year. She recently completed a secondment to Prison Health (DH) and has many years experience of working as a dietitian in primary, secondary and tertiary centres across England.
She is looking forward to engaging with ADM colleagues in taking forward the good work, already developing from the NHS Estates Clean Care work.
“In my student days, I worked as a domestic assistant, in two Aberdeen hospitals. I know first-hand the important role which all ancillary staff have in contributing to good patient care. I hope that we can continue to raise the profile of these roles further in coming years”.
Murray Devine Safety Strategy Lead, Healthcare Commission
Murray Devine’s principle role is to advise the Commission generally on how its work can best impact on improving both patient and staff/carer safety. He has contributed to designing the Commission’s systems of assessment for the safety and care environment domains of the national standards and has been responsible for national studies into healthcare acquired infection (HAI) and hospital cleanliness.
Susan Williams Joint CE National Patient Safety Agency
Susan Williams & Sue Osborn are the Joint Chief Executive of the National Patient Safety (NPSA), the UK’s leading patient safety organisation. Susan and Sue joined the NPSA as its first chief executives in October 2001, tasked with creating a new organisation that is dedicated to improving the safety of patients in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). The NPSA has grown rapidly to become an international partner in the patient safety field, developing safety solutions to assist healthcare professionals and improve the safety of patient care.
In the four years since the launch of the NPSA Susan and Sue have overseen the development of the systems and tools necessary to improve patient safety. These include the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS), which gathers and analyses information on events that did or could have harmed patients in the NHS. This is the first such system on this scale anywhere in the world and provides invaluable insights into how and why mistakes are made, in turn informing the development of solutions designed to ensure a safer healthcare environment.
The NPSA is already delivering practical solutions to the NHS, improving the safety of a host of procedures including the use of infusion devices, the use of drugs like potassium chloride and methotrexate and improving hand hygiene to stop the spread of healthcare acquired infections. The NPSA has also launched new investigation and disciplinary techniques designed to help healthcare staff learn from their mistakes.
The NPSA’s remit was expanded from April 1 2005 giving greater scope to improve patient safety in the NHS following the publication of Reconfiguring the Department of Health’s Arm’s Length Bodies in July 2004.
From 1 April, the NPSA assumed responsibility for the National Clinical Assessment Authority as it became the NPSA’s National Clinical Assessment Service (NCAS), providing a service to NHS employers where there are concerns over the performance of individual doctors and dentists.
Other new responsibilities include the Central Office for Research Ethics Committees (COREC), overseeing Research Ethics Committees who safeguard the rights, dignity and welfare of people participating in NHS research, the Better Hospital Food Programme, aspects of cleanliness in the NHS, the safety of hospital design and contracts with the confidential enquiries into maternal and child health (CEMACH), patient outcome and death (NCEPOD) and suicide and homicide by people with mental illness (NCISH), which move from NICE to the NPSA.
Susan and Sue have a wealth of experience in the NHS, with the continuing theme of reform and improvement to patient services running through their careers. Both started as NHS graduate trainees in 1975/6; Susan Williams at Manchester Business School and Sue Osborn at the King’s Fund in London. Their early work was centred in south London where they initially managed acute services.
In 1990 they became Joint Chief Executive for the Family Health Service Authority in Lambeth South West and Lewisham (London) and in 1993 for Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth (London). In 1994 they undertook a major review of acute services in south west London.
In the early 1990’s they led a series of London wide primary care initiatives, including the Education Programme, and published a review of the London Initiative Zone in 1996. Sue Osborn chaired the North East London Workforce Confederation for two years and Susan Williams led a London wide review of specialist commissioning of neurosciences services between 1999 and 2001. Susan and Sue became Chief Executive of Barking and Havering Health Authority (London) in 1994, a position they held until joining the NPSA.
Continuing interests are patient and public involvement, research and development and diversity. Both are married with teenage children and live in south east London.
Sam Oestricher, National Officer, UNISON, on A4C
Sam Oestreicher is a National Officer in UNISON’s Health Service Group. He has worked at UNISON since its inception in 1993 and before that at the partner union NALGO (National Association of Local Government Officers), which along with NUPE (National Union of Public Employees) and COHSE (Confederation of Health Service Employees) merged to form UNISON.
Sam’s current responsibilities within the Health Group includes the secretariats of UNISON’s National Ancillary and Maintenance Sector, National Ambulance Sector and National Professional and Technical B Sector representing approximately 150,000 NHS employees across the UK.
Dr Mike Simmons, Senior Medical Officer (Communicable Disease) Welsh Assembly Government
Dr Mike Simmons is a Deputy Chief Medical Officer within the Office of the Chief Medical Officer. While healthcare associated infection and infection control are an important part of his work, he also has responsibilities for other communicable disease issues including: CJD, blood borne viruses, zoonotic infections (infections from animals), communicable disease aspects of emergency planning etc. He chaired the Decontamination Project Board, responsible for the upgrading of services within the hospital sterilisation services.
Mike is an accredited consultant medical microbiologist on secondment from the National Public Health Service for Wales, since its inception in 2003. His contract was previously with the Public Health Laboratory Service until the formation of the Health Protection Agency and NPHS. He was the previous director of the Public Health Laboratory in Carmarthen.
Specialist training in medical microbiology was conducted in the Royal Navy, where he served a 16 year commission, including active service with the South Atlantic Task Force.
Tracey Gauci Nursing Officer for Communicable Disease Office of the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales
Tracey Gauci is currently seconded to the Office of the Chief Nursing Officer within the Welsh Assembly Government as Nursing Officer for Communicable Disease. As well as covering healthcare associated infection and clean hospitals, Tracey's role includes responsibility for wider communicable disease issues, occupational health and emergency planning.
Previously Tracey was the Senior Nurse for Infection Control for Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust (1997 - 2002) and Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust (1991- 1997). She was amongst the first cohort of nurses in the UK to undertake a degree specifically in infection control at the University of Hertfordshire in 1995.